The present invention relates to data storage management, and more specifically, to deduplication in a hybrid storage network environment.
Cloud computing is a paradigm in which tasks are assigned to a combination of connections, software and services that are accessed over a network. This network of servers and connections is collectively known as “the cloud.”
Based on the number and type of resources that make up the cloud, these resources may require a great deal of storage space. Advances in disk and storage technologies have helped to manage performance and space requirements of network clouds. For example, deduplication techniques have been developed for maximizing available storage space in which redundant data or files are eliminated from storage, thereby increasing the storage capabilities of the cloud.
While deduplication processes remove duplicate entries of files in storage, these processes do not consider factors such as file characteristics or the disk technology on which the files will be stored, nor do the processes consider redundant array independent disk (RAID) configurations or RAID rebuilding processes. For example, if multiple copies of a file are located on storage systems that employ different disk technologies, the deduplication processes do not consider which disk technologies or RAID configurations may provide better read and write performance. Further, during a RAID rebuild process, the RAID array remains accessible to users (e.g., a RAID controller allocates system resources to process user I/O requests, which in turn, uses CPU resources that may slow down overall performance).